


The Hunt

by HopeCoppice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Further Revenge of Original Sides, Heaven vs Hell, Love, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Other, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-20 20:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21287516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: There’s golden blood on the floor, pooling just beyond the physical plane. Crowley has come out into the world in search of an angel, was counting on finding one, but a wounded angel? Those things are feral. Perhaps he should just leave and try to acquire a new target. A fresh one, one he can catch off-guard.It’s too late to catch this one off-guard.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 221





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is very short, but it falls naturally into four parts. I'll try to update every couple of days - I'm doing NaNo at the moment so my attention is divided.
> 
> TW for some implied/off-screen violence and blood (ethereal).

Crowley doesn’t have a clear grasp of why The War To End Everything was called off. Armageddon hasn’t happened, somehow, despite his delivering the Antichrist as promised eleven years ago, and now instead of a big, glorious war, there’s to be a hunt, of sorts. Beelzebub seems to have spoken to the archangels about it - Satan’s nowhere to be seen, these days, there are rumours he’s left Hell entirely - and it’s agreed. There will be a free-for-all, every angel a target, every demon a killer - although, of course, the angels probably think it’s the other way around.

“Angels are szzoft,” Beelzebub tells them with supreme confidence, and looses them on the world. Crowley fights the urge to go home to his flat, to shout at his plants and just lie low as if nothing is different, to live his lonely life and hope it all blows over. He should be excited for the chase; Crowley loves chasing things, he’s sure of it. He’s not sure what it is, but he’s got a feeling he’s been chasing something for nearly 6000 years already. He can take a break from that to chase down an angel; at least he might have some hope of _ catching _that.

He doesn’t question his hazy memory of, well, everything, because that’s just what memory is like, isn’t it? Places are dimly-remembered, faces are blurred, the last sixty centuries are complete mysteries. That’s memory, for you. Just one more thing to thank Her for.

Oh, but he remembers _ that_. He remembers _ Falling_. There’s the rub; that was all so long ago, and yet it’s clear as day in his mind, the details burned into his body and seared into his soul. He’s sure he must have had pleasant times since - more pleasant, at least, than the freestyle dive into boiling sulphur - but he doesn’t remember any hint of happiness. He doesn’t remember _ anything _much. It’s probably all part of being a demon, he supposes.

He’s been wandering, half-heartedly wondering how one’s supposed to hunt an angel anyway, and how one might catch one stupid enough to be alone, and now he’s on a street he doesn’t recognise in _ Soho, _ of all places. Why has he come to Soho? It must be almost as repellant to angels as Manchester - which he vaguely remembers nudging the layout of, street by street, until it formed a complex sigil that made Heavenly types within 20 miles of it feel distinctly queasy - so it's the last place he ought to be. He’s dimly aware that at some point, somewhere in those muddled centuries, he seems to have majorly annoyed Beelzebub; he _ needs _ to bring down an angel, if he wants to have any chance of a decent life after this. Whatever _ after this _ looks like.

He’s lost in his own thoughts, not paying attention to anything, when his feet seem to walk him into a shop of their own accord. He looks around. _ Ugh. A bookshop. Old books, too, and I bet they’re not even the raunchy kind_. But then his eye is drawn to a glimmer on the ground; something is catching the light, reflecting it.

There’s golden blood on the floor, pooling just beyond the physical plane. Crowley has come out into the world in search of an angel, was counting on finding one, but a _ wounded _angel? Those things are feral. Perhaps he should just leave and try to acquire a new target. A fresh one, one he can catch off-guard.

It’s too late to catch this one off-guard; the shop doors slam and lock even as he turns towards them, and behind him he hears the eerie sound of a body being dragged across the floor. Freezing, he tries to remember what he’s seen of his surroundings; there’s a back room, he thinks, probably something quaintly furnished with an antique sofa and… and… _ medals_, or something. It’s a nonsensical thought - he’s probably hysterical - but the dragging noise sounds again, and he knows he has no choice but to turn and fight. He can only hope that whoever’s dragging a body around back there is a fellow demon; they might defend their kill, but they’re not going to destroy him. If he’s locked in a shop with a wounded angel…

The dragging noise reaches the door and a pale, shaking hand grips the doorframe at floor level. Crowley watches in astonishment as the angel pulls itself across the threshold and looks up. He tenses, ready to strike.

“Crowley?” Crowley deflates; how on earth does this stranger know who he is? Has he been assigned as a specific target? Is this some sort of trap, the angel pretending to be weakened so that Crowley will let down his guard? “Crowley, thank Somebody you’re here. I… I’m in rather a bad way, I’m afraid.”

Crowley stares at him in utter confusion. The angel is acting as if he expects Crowley’s _ help_, which is ridiculous. He is a demon, and this is an angel. But as the angel shifts forward one more time, that horrible body-dragging sound coming with him, he sees blood, so much golden blood, pouring from the ethereal creature’s corporation - and he surges forward to place his hands over the wound, to staunch the bleeding as best he can.

“How do you know my name?” But the angel’s eyes are already closed.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn’t try to wake the angel for an answer, at first, too busy hauling him back through into the back room and onto the antique sofa he’d guessed was there. The angel half-rouses, makes a token protest about bloodstains ruining the fabric, but apparently has no objection to being manhandled by a demon. Crowley should kill him - now - while he’s weak and helpless. He should destroy him, hellfire ready to spring from his snapped fingers and consume this small portion of the Host, and go back down to Hell to be appreciated, for once. Instead, he pokes irritably at the angel’s face until he opens his eyes.

“If a demon tries to heal you, will it make it worse?”

“No. No, it never has before.” This angel has been healed by a demon _ before?_ How can that be? Demons don’t heal angels, or vice versa. They’re hereditary enemies, ancient adversaries. They’re like oil and water - worse, like oil and fire. He hesitates; is this angel somehow defective? Is that why whoever clearly tried to gut his corporation didn’t finish the job?

“Who- What’s the name of the demon that did this to you?” He demands the information clearly and firmly; you have to be careful, asking questions of angels. They’re devious creatures, they have to be, because how else could they convince themselves that they are loved by Her, too loved to Fall, too loved to truly fear Her? He has to phrase the question clearly, or this angel will wriggle his way out of answering.

“It wasn’t a demon,” the angel whimpers, “please, Crowley, just- just heal me, if you’re going to, and run. It isn’t safe here.”

“Not a demon?” Crowley frowns; no human could overpower an angel, even one as passive and compliant as this one seems to be. “It _ must _ have been-”

“It was Gabriel. And if he’s after _ me… _ Crowley. Crowley, run.”

_ Gabriel _ isn’t a demonic name. Gabriel is an archangel’s name. An _ archangel _ wounded this angel, and left him here to… what, lure some poor unsuspecting demon into a trap? But it all seems too specific, too targeted. Why else would this bleeding angel be using what must be the last of his energy to repeat Crowley’s _ name?_

“Who are you?” He needs the name, needs to know it if he’s going to heal the angel, but the thought of surrendering it seems to frighten the wounded creature. “I’m not going to use it against you, I can’t heal you if I don’t know-”

“Crowley?” The angel whimpers, tears springing to his eyes as if he’s only just realised he’s hurt, and Crowley whips his hand away from where it’s been absent-mindedly brushing over the angel’s cheek. He has a vague memory of somebody touching _ his _ cheek, once, gently, and it being comforting - perhaps that’s why his hand found its way there. The important thing, though, is that he’s heard angel tears are Holy Water, and he’s in no hurry to be destroyed by his own kinder impulses. _ Kindness_. He wants to spit venom at the thought. He is a _ demon_. They are not _ kind. _ They are not _ nice. _“It’s me, dear. Aziraphale.”

_ Dear_. The word falls softly on his ears, then wriggles inside and curls up, soft and warm, somewhere in his brain. It’s as if it belongs there, but it definitely, categorically doesn’t. The important thing, though, is that he has the angel’s name. He can use that. He can heal him, and then take him somewhere else, where nobody will find them, and he can demand answers to all his questions. He sets his hands gingerly over the wound in Aziraphale’s side - like the last injury to a crucified man - and focuses his energy on healing. _ Aziraphale, _ his heart sings, as if it already knows this tune. _ Aziraphale. _

Before he’s even realised that it’s worked, the angel has clamped both hands around his elbow and _ pulled_, pulled Crowley into the ether, into the strange half-dimension where wings go when you hide them, and then dropped them out the other side in a dark, unfamiliar place. Crowley has been tricked, he has time to realise, he has fallen into the trap - and then blinding pain rips through his head. It’s his turn to be unconscious, he has time to think, and then he is.


	3. Chapter 3

When he wakes, he realises abruptly that it's not a dark place at all. The light of the stars directly behind him is just making it hard to see the millions of others out there. Great. He's lost his mind, saved the angel he should have killed and been abducted into space for his troubles.

"Ah. You're awake."

"Where are we?" He's trying to sound intimidating, but it comes out more curious than anything. He's not even really scared, although he knows he should be.

"Alpha Centauri. Sorry about the lack of warning, it wasn't safe-"

"Why have you brought me here?"

"Oh, my dear. Do you truly not know me?"

Crowley peers at him carefully. He doesn’t know him; at least, he doesn’t think he does. But when he looks into the angel’s eyes, he thinks he can smell rain, and taste wine, and hear…

“Wiggle-on,” he tries, cautiously, “what does that mean?”

“Oh, Crowley- you remember-?”

“I don’t.” He shakes his head. “I remember rain, and wine, and… pancakes? And I can _ hear _ your voice saying _ wiggle-on_, and I don’t understand.”

“They took your memory.” Aziraphale looks _ devastated _by the realisation, as if it’s _ him _ who’s apparently missing millennia of experiences. “Took your memory, and stabbed me, and left me there for you to find.”

“Messed up, there, then,” Crowley points out, “doubt they wanted me to _ save _you.”

“And they probably didn’t mean for me to whisk you away,” Aziraphale counters. “But if you don’t know me, why _ did _you save me?”

“Felt right,” Crowley admits. “Er- what did I miss? Were we, er, friends?”

“The very best,” Aziraphale assures him, “took on Heaven and Hell together to save the world - hence our current predicament.”

“Oh. And- we managed it?”

“We did.”

“And we weren’t- there was nothing else?”

Aziraphale seems to falter, then, the bright smile he’s had fixed on his face all this time dimming a little, and Crowley rushes on.

“Only I was- there’s another thing that feels right- I-”

He leans in, cupping a hand to the angel’s jaw, and when Aziraphale doesn’t recoil he knows he must have stumbled upon truth. His lips brush Aziraphale’s, just briefly- _ feels right- _and then he throws himself backwards with a gasp as six thousand years’ worth of memories flood his mind.

_Rain_ _over Eden; a wing stretched over him to keep him dry._

_ Rain again, and screaming, and an angel’s tears not quite disguised by the deluge. _

_ A friendly face in an unfeeling crowd. _

_ Oysters. Armour. Plays. Poetry. St James’ Park. Ducks. _

_ Raising Warlock. The wrong boy. The right boy. _

_ Horsemen. Heaven. The Ritz. And then… _

_ Crowley had lost his nerve, again, and decided against asking Aziraphale for a kiss goodnight. The angel had even seemed somewhat expectant, had asked Crowley in for a nightcap in the newly-restored bookshop, but Crowley had mumbled something indistinct about plants and all but sprinted back to his own flat. _

_ He was a coward; always had been, really, when it came to Aziraphale. He had shown the angel that he loved him in a thousand ways, but never actually told him out loud - and Aziraphale had always been a being of words. Now, without the fear of Heaven and Hell finding out about them and raining down judgement, they could finally relax, safe in the knowledge that they were a pair. They had always been a pair, really, just torn between two sides. They had time, now, time to go at their own pace. He wouldn’t go too fast again. _

_ Crowley pushed open the door to his flat and realised, too late, that it wasn’t empty. _

_ “Crowley,” Beelzebub greeted him, and something hit the back of his head, and then a terrible buzzing filled his ears, his mind, every nerve in his body. _

_ When he woke, his past was gone. _

“Angel,” he whispers, “I remember.” And then he realises what he _ doesn’t _ remember. What he distinctly remembers _ not _ happening _ . _“Oh, Somebody, angel, I’m sorry-”

“Don’t be,” Aziraphale responds, “I’ve wanted you to do that for so long.”

“You and me both,” he admits with a shaky smile, but it doesn't feel safe to linger on the subject. “So… Hell wiped my memories. Why?”

“I imagine that would be for the same reason Heaven tried to kill me. The execution failed, so… I just don’t understand why Gabriel left me alive. Anyone could have stumbled across me and healed me up-”

“They knew I’d find you." Aziraphale has never been very good with complicated plans, but Crowley understands them. He makes them all the time. He can unravel other people's, too, puzzling them out the way Aziraphale completes crosswords. "That’s why they took my memories, so I’d find you and kill you, just a random angel, to get back in favour. They think we’re _ both _ something new, I’m sure they believe we could destroy one another.”

“Well, that’s…” Aziraphale, for once, seems lost for words. “...Disturbing,” he decides eventually. “But Hell would just have taken you back? No memories, no problems? They weren’t going to punish you?”

Crowley considers, for a moment, not answering, but he owes Aziraphale this much. This truth. 

“I imagine they’d have just given me my memories back. Let me feel what I’d done." He can't look at his angel. "If I even survived, I’d have been too broken to give them any trouble.”

“Oh, Crowley.” Aziraphale wraps the demon in his arms, then his wings fold around them to form a protective cocoon against the light of the stars and the abyss of space. “They didn’t count on your _ heart_, dear.”

“Or on you being enough of a bastard to _ kidnap me to space,_” Crowley points out.

“Exactly. They shouldn’t come looking for a while. So the question becomes…” Crowley braces himself; surely, Aziraphale has changed his mind and wants to know why he kissed him. But the angel just gives him that slightly wild smile he loves so much, the smile he always wants to kiss off of his face, and finishes, “...how can we repay them?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last part! Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoy the ending.

The hunt had been scheduled to last for a month; one solid month of angels and demons pursuing one another across the globe, leaving no stone unturned in the search to destroy one another. And then a truce, an uneasy peace set to last until somebody works out how to set the Great Plan back in motion again.

Aziraphale and Crowley return to Earth six weeks after they left it, making no secret of their arrival. They’ve had a lovely rest, up in the stars, catching up on some of the things they’ve always meant to say to each other and never dared. Still, it’s nice to come home, especially since Aziraphale insists on taking them down in an enormous blast of ethereal power. As they land, the ground around them ripples, car alarms screeching into life in every direction. Crowley makes sure to throw out a little more infernal power than he strictly needs to turn them off, just to be sure it doesn't go unnoticed- and then lightning hits the bookshop.

“Predictable,” Aziraphale notes, and Crowley can’t help but agree as Beelzebub oozes out of the tarmac.

“Let’s take this inside, then.” 

They saunter into Aziraphale’s shop, arm in arm, and find Gabriel standing there spluttering.

“But- I- I stabbed you, how are you still-? This is your fault!” He lurches towards Beelzebub, who’s followed them in. “You didn’t wipe his memory right!”

“He had no memory of your agent,” Beelzebub argues, “we took almost everything.”

“Yeah, you did. Thanks for that, by the way,” Crowley tells his boss, with a glare, “that was actually mildly inconvenient.”

“Mildly inconvenient?!” Gabriel is almost vibrating with rage. “You were both supposed to be dead!”

“Oh, and you thought we were?” Crowley sneers. “You couldn’t find us for, what, two weeks, after the dust had settled? And you thought you’d won.”

“How terribly disappointing for you.” Aziraphale couldn’t possibly sound less sincere. “We’re going nowhere, so perhaps you’d be so kind as to leave my shop?”

“And don’t come back,” Crowley adds, in case they’re getting any ideas. “We were prepared to stay out of your way, if you stayed out of ours, but… well, this is your second strike, guys.”

Gabriel and Beelzebub exchange worried looks, and then Beelzebub jerks zir head sideways, gesturing for Gabriel to follow. Gabriel looks briefly horrified by the idea of following a demon’s instructions, but Aziraphale makes quite a show of crossing the shop and opening the door and they both seem to decide they’d rather be outside. Crowley follows them to the door so he can slip his arm around Aziraphale’s waist; he doesn’t trust their former bosses, and he doesn’t want Aziraphale further than arm’s reach from him until they’re gone.

“We won’t be hearing from you, then!” Aziraphale calls merrily after them, and closes the shop door. He turns his back on the street, fussing with Crowley’s collar - Crowley suspects he’s turning it tartan - but Crowley keeps his eyes fixed on the unlikely pair in the street as they have a heated conversation before vanishing in their respective showy ways.

“Well, that was splendid,” Aziraphale is saying, and Crowley sighs.

“They’ll be back.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. The more they come after us, though, the more scared they get.”

“Yeah, and scared beings are dangerous.” But Aziraphale’s arms are draped over his shoulders, and Aziraphale is gazing at him as if he's something worthy of adoration, and it’s hard to be grumpy about anything. “Are you going to hit the books, then? Try to work out how I got my memories back?”

“No, I don’t think so. That section,” he gestures vaguely at the hidden bookcase that holds his most accurate metaphysical and theological tomes, “would probably say something about how our essences were so entwined with our corporations that some of your memories got attached to my corporation when we switched - or something like that, anyway.” Aziraphale shrugs. “That section, however, would say it was the power of true love’s kiss.” He’s pointing at his collection of antique fairytales, and Crowley rolls his eyes.

“Well, it did happen when I kissed you.” He can feel his expression softening, sees Aziraphale’s light up in response. “Can’t believe you’re letting me.”

“Believe it, dear.”

Crowley is a demon; he’s not built for belief. But for this, he thinks he can make an exception.


End file.
